New York City Opera

New York City was the site of a bittersweet anniversary concert this past weekend. Seventy years ago, on February 21, 1944, the New York City Opera had opened its doors with a performance of Tosca. The event was commemorated last Friday night with a concert featuring nine soloists, including Placido Domingo. But the seventy-year-old opera company may have breathed its last. The New York City Opera, where careers like that of Placido Domingo, Beverly Sills, Jose Carreras, and Samuel Ramey were launched and which paved the way for singers and composers of color, cancelled its season in the fall of 2013 and has been undergoing bankruptcy procedures since October. The now laid-off musicians of the company's orchestra and chorus had a reunion for the concert. At the same time, the administration and the creditors of the New York City Opera are in tough negotiations before a bankruptcy court in Manhattan so that the City Opera may be saved after all. Georg Hirsch has the story.

Listen (in German)

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